A Day in the Life
by Elaryn
Summary: The late Jack T. Chance talks about his life as a Green Lantern with some trainees.


The characters and situations belong to DC Comics. I'm just borrowing them For fun - not profit.

Nothing explicit, but a few "naughty" words. There are references to crime, child abuse and violence.

**A Day in the Life**

Hey there! White circles! Nice to see ya! We usually don't get newbies down here...not talkative ones, anyways, and I saw you kinda lookin' at my memorial and wonderin' to yourself, "Was this guy _really _a Green Lantern? He looks more like the kinda guy GLs arrest." Well, lemme light up here, and I'll tell you a little about me.

Like it says on the plaque, the name's Jack T. Chance. No, I ain't tellin' ya what the "T" stands for. Heh. I was the Green Lantern for Sector 17, and my homebase was that little slice o'paradise called Garnet. What? Ya never heard o'Garnet? Howz about Hellhole? That's what _we_ called it. Why? Cuz it was. Nastiest place in the universe outside o'Qward! Ya had the worst scum imaginable: slavers, cheap thugs and nutball killers, con artists, terrorists, pirates... If it was nasty, it was on Hellhole.

I was one o'three. Two older brothers, then me. Don't remember my mom too well. She died when I was real small. Dad was usually hopped up on whatever substance he could lay hands to, and when he wasn't, he was off hustlin' his next supply. Eventually, he pissed off the wrong creep and got his head blown off. Whoops.

Now I suppose you're wonderin' why old Jack wasn't too sorry to see his old man get wasted. Simple. When he wasn't out cold from whatever he'd taken, he liked ta use us for punchin' bags, and since I was the youngest... Well, you get the picture. My brothers weren't much different - just younger and more sober. They liked to get in on the fun, too, and when they got older, sometimes they'd start the party without Dad. I ain't goin' into the gory details, but let's just say it wasn't any fun for me and leave it at that.

So Dad died, Mort and Nick moved on, and Jack was left alone to do his own thing. And I bet yer wonderin' what that was, ain't ya? I kept busy: gamblin', scammin', stealin', workin' at whatever I could get; whatever I could do to have a place ta stay and something ta eat. I signed on with a trader and learned ta manage cargo, work trades and fly a ship. I was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Turned out I was a whiz at at accountin'. And, I found out I damned good with a blaster, which is a great idea when ya got creeps who'll waste ya cuz they think ya looked at 'em funny.

It wasn't a great life, but it was a life. There were girls. I don't remember any o'their names, and not like it matters. I'd like ta think they remembered Jack T. Chance as that guy who showed 'em a real good time, but I got no illusions. We had fun, but that was it. I hated all the bad stuff I saw - the double-dealin' , the fear, the despair. Sometimes it seemed like the closer ya got to the top, the further ya fell back in. No way outta the 'hole.

So one day, I'm walkin' out of a casino when I heard blaster fire. I made damn sure no one was aimin' at Jack, then I sorta looked around ta make sure the coast was clear, when all of a sudden, I saw this bright green streak. Now that, I says to myself, is somethin' ya don't see every day...not even on Hellhole! The green streak turned out to be a ring. It looked real pretty, and I wondered what I might get if I could sell it.

I put it on my finger so I wouldn't lose track of it, and all of sudden, I was wearin' this weird-lookin' green underwear. Oh yeah, and a mask. But wait...this gets better! The fraggin' thing _talked_! Yeah, that's right...it _talked_. A talkin' ring! And damn, could that thing talk! The Green Lantern Corps...responsibility...honour...a proud tradition. Yadda-yadda. Well, the first thing I told it to do was lose the union suit. Ol' Jack Chance sure as hell ain't wanderin' around in some stupid-lookin' get-up!

After we settled our wardrobe issues, I asked the ring to make it plain and simple: just what in hell _was _I supposed to do? The ring said my new job was ta start takin' out the trash! Yowza! I'd been waitin' ta do that all my life. Yeah. That's right. I'd seen what livin' on Hellhole could do ta people. I remember what it was like bein' a kid: being scared most o' the time, havin' ta scrounge for food, dodgin' slavers, and watchin' all the crap that went on, day in and day out. People was sufferin', and _now _I could do somethin' about it. Yeah...little Jack Chance - the punchin' bag, that worthless, stupid, pathetic little bastard - he was gonna save the world!

It was great! I even made up my own version o' the Green Lantern oath. Personally, I think the original is kinda, well...corny. No zip, no zing, no fraggin' style. Here's mine:

_You who are wicked, evil and mean-  
I'm the nastiest creep you've ever seen!  
Come one, come all; put up a fight;  
I'll pound your butts with Green Lantern's light!  
Yowza!_

Come on...ain't that sweet? I never thought o'myself as a poet, but that's _classic _verse!

Um, yeah. Anyways, after I scragged the creep who smoked my predecessor, I got hauled back to GL HQ for a talkin'-to. See, back then the rings couldn't use lethal force, and I had this rude habit: I wanted ta keep breathin'. I had developed this great technique for trashin' creeps: wear 'em down with the cute lkittle green bauble, then smoke 'em with my trusty blaster! Another piece o'history is that the damn rings couldn't work against yellow. I got no idea why, but it was a fact o' life. The lowlife took advantage o'that and carried a lot weapons with yellow bullets or yellow beams or whatever, which is, by the way, what offed several of the poor schlubs who had the job before me. But ya know what? Jack T. Chance _always _carries a back-up. Sometimes doin' it the old-fashioned way is the best way.

The Guardians spewed all this high-minded crap about the Green Lantern Corps: cosmic protectors, keepers of the flame, a sacred duty, a solemn honour, pass the hooch and clap yer hands. They made it sound some kinda weirdo religion, but as ol' Jack explained it to 'em, that attitude is what gets your guys killed when they decide to play on Hellhole. Hellhole is a fraggin' gutter...hell, maybe even a sewer...and no one knows the gutter like Jack T. Chance.

Obviously, they let me keep the ring -"on probation." But once I got the ring, life changed. It was kinda tough sometimes, but hey - more fun that way, if ya ask me! It beats bein' bored. And I began ta see little changes - good changes. Ya can't fix a whole world if you're just one guy - not unless a whole lotta other people decide ta pitch in - but I could see things happenin', an' it felt _good_.

So what was my average day like? No such thing as "average," but it usually went down a little something like this: Get up (sober, because never mind that "bad boy" rep, in my world, slingers who ain't payin' attention got this other name: "dead"). Haul on my boots (usually slept in my clothes.) Eat somethin'. Go out and look for trouble. Sometimes trouble would come to me. I'd get people a-knockin' on my door lookin' for help or a hand-out. We got no welfare on Hellhole. Lotta hungry people out there. We got pimps who like to beat the hell outta their stable. We got rape and got slavers sellin' stock or lookin' for fresh meat. We got injuries and accidents and fires and all kinds o' shit. Never a dull moment!

Help where it's needed: like explaining to some scuzzball how it's not nice to stick a blaster in someone's face an' take their shit. Like hidin' a beat-up whore in my apartment 'til I could get her passage back home. (Some o'them were pretty young.) Relievin' slavers o'their victims, takin' 'em to nice, cozy Sciencells so they could rap with Voz, and takin' the victims back home. I played medic, referee, traffic cop...I even played obstetrician a couple o'times. Now Jack's not the sentimental type, but there's somethin' kinda special about holdin' a brand-new baby. I never got around ta bein' a dad - at least not that I know of, anyways - so that was the closest yours truly ever got.

Speakin' o'playin' dad, I guess ya could say I did that, too. Lots o'kids. No one watchin' out for 'em, some of 'em gettin' the same kinda shit I did...learnin' ta be crooks cuz there's no other way to put food in yer belly. They were just waitin' to get sick, or hurt or scooped up by some slime who thinks it's cool to mess with kids. Well, not on Jack's beat! I tried ta look after 'em the best I could. Like I said, I'm just one guy.

There was this one kid who tried stealin' from me. Not cool! So I grabbed him in a capture field, reeled him in and wondered just what in hell I was gonna do with him. He looked like he was 11 at oldest. Cute little guy, really. I got him inta my apartment, spanked his butt and told him that if I ever caught doin' that kinda thing again, he was gonna regret it, because Jack T. Chance was gonna be watchin' him. Then I gave him somethin' ta eat and shooed him out the door with a package o'food ta take home to his ma. After that, ya might say he became a regular at "Jack's Place." Nice kid. I understand he managed to get offa Hellhole and get work on a freighter. Ya know, nuke that stuff about not bein' sentimental. Jack loves happy endings.

I seem ta have a rep for playin' fast an' loose, but it ain't always so. I never needed that ring, and I made that clear to the short guys in the robes: let me do it _my_ way, or I hand it back, and we call it a day. But ya know, I sure loved havin' the power to make a difference. I hope I did. If I did, it was worth it - all the hassle, all the crud, all the fraggin' stupid crap from the Guardians about "demerits" and "reprimands" and that sorta shit. So what is this? Kiddie school? Nuke that! Come on and join ol' Jack in the real world, and ya might not have such a high turnover rate.

I went missin' for a while. One o'the 2814s - Hal Jordan - went batshit and started wasting Lanterns left and right. I was one o'the poor bastards sent ta stop him, but ya know what they say about age and treachery. I never did forgive that sonnova bitch! Me and the rest o'the Lanterns sent ta stop Jordan got ta be known as "The Lost Lanterns." When we got found again, it had been several years. I never did get what happened, an' it's probably not real important anyways.

Jordan claimed he'd been possessed by somethin' that called itself "Parallax." It was supposed ta be some kinda "cosmic parasite." None of us wanted ta believe him, and ya can guess why. Oh, riiiight. "The devil made me do it." We ain't nearly as dumb as you wish, Jordan! But ya know what? He was tellin' the truth.

When I died, we were sent to get somethin' called "Ion" back from Qward. All of a sudden, we was facin' down a buncha Sinestro Corps. We was kickin' ass, too. But then this other guy showed up. I think he was another of the 2814s. I forget his real name, I didn't know too much about him, but there he was. But he looked weird - his face was all distorted, mouth open too big and with too damn many teeth - kinda like how Jordan looked just before he punched my lights out. It was fraggin' creepy. Jack T. Chance ain't afraid o'much, but seein' that was like a bucket o'ice water down my back. Then he started sayin' stuff - about my dad, my brothers and how they used ta do stuff to me. He said I was a "scared little boy" inside. I was trapped inside my own head - like some fraggin' nightmare where I could see and feel everything just like it was happenin' again. I got so rattled my shields dropped. Then the bastard smoked me. End o'story.

So... Does Jack Chance have any regrets? Yer probably expectin' me to say I got none, but that ain't true. I regret some o' the stuff I did before gettin' the ring. A guy's gotta eat, but... Well, let's just say I wasn't always on the right side o' the law. I woulda liked ta see Hellhole get better - maybe not _be_ "Hellhole" anymore. It's woulda been nice ta see people able to walk down the street an' not wonder if some scug was gonna jump 'em and take their stuff or worse. I regret not gettin' ta know more of my fellow Lanterns better. And finally, I regret never falling in love - really falling in love - maybe stayin' with a special lady for a long time an' makin' babies with her. Gettin' old together. Bein' a dad an' doin' it _right_. Maybe even grandkids.

But like I said before, I love happy endings, an' before ya get all weepy on me, I _did_ have a happy ending, though it might not sound like it ta you. No, really. Look...no one wants ta die, but if ya gotta go, go down fightin'. If Parallax was busy wastin' _me_, he wasn't wastin' someone else, which gave them a chance to kick his butt or at least get away. The team's gotta come first. See, that's one thing I learned: yer stronger when you're part of a team. An' I was part o' the best team in the galaxy. I was a Green Lantern. So are you, and don't you EVER forget it!

I guess you guys know the way out. Thanks fer stoppin' by, and thanks fer listenin'. Earn those badges and make ol' Jack proud, and don't be in a hurry to join me.


End file.
